The Bluestocking does a late night flit again

[Magpiecomplex]

New thread, you know the drill!

Interpretative dance by Boily is a masterpiece. We need more. Particularly when ploppers are around.

Will we have a performance of the Nutcracker? With half the gerbils as mice, and all of us gazing spellbound at the dance of the sugar plum beetle?

Not until the weather changes, obviously.

Myrtle - the lackadaisical was your hospital has dealt with after-discharge information is maddening. All too familiar though - my dentist provides detailed written instructions, contact information, advice on meds. The vet gives thorough verbal advice and phone support, the public health nurse used to visit, give advice, bring dressings or apparatus she thought would help.

Doctors? nada

If it wasn't highly unethical, I swear surgeons should be made to undergo one of their own operations and recoveries. Might make them at least a tiny bit more empathetic.
Orthopaedics are some of the worst, but obstetrics are pretty bad too. I got the distinct impression that the team doing my first C-section regarded me as a regrettable inconvenience. Honourable exception for anaesthetists though, I've never met a bad anaesthetist.

I think they are so used to knowing what should happen, they assume the patient has the same knowledge. I have had a boot before, but after a fracture and it was six years ago. The advice was to wear the boot during the day as it was about rehabilitating walking. Here it's acting as a cast all of the time and an aid to walking and they assumed I knew what to do.

I removed the re-dressing from Wednesday to discover my foot is severely bruised - unsurprisingly! See the image below. There has been some more bleeding, but it's fine and I'm not posting a picture of the wound.

It clearly says on my notes that I am neurodivergent, but no-one asked me what form that takes me how they could help. I felt I was on a conveyor belt as an anaesthetic problem, then a leg problem, then a low blood pressure in recovery problem, then a mobility problem, then a pain relief problem, then a bleeding problem, rather than a whole person. When I was considered a person, I was a complainer who just didn’t know what was good for me.
Hopefully it will be better from now. I have a follow-up appointment due in 10 days though they have yet to send me the actual appointment. When I broke my leg they forgot to refer me to the fracture clinic on discharge, so I am concerned that has happened again.

Can you use arnica cream or lotion to help with the bruising, or would that interfere with the healing process overall?

Gosh Myrtle your boot sounds like part of what an astronaut would wear to do a spacewalk, only a lot less comfortable😞

And yes, my trials and tribulations about costly small pieces of plastic are DEFINITELY trivial in comparison, it would have been unthinkable to read one of your posts, or other Stockingers going through very difficult things and follow it up with
'Yeah yeah, that's tough - but you think you've got problems? I got a small piece of plastic which is the wrong size and cost a lot to have delivered to me!'😏

But thank you for the kind words about my 1:43 scale problems😀

Boily your dance performance is wonderful - we don't often see your wings deployed, do we? Get your elytra out for the gurls😁

And it clearly totally confused the silly OP, who I see was also the Onlie Begetter of the 'MNers are obsessed with penises' thread which also took some very weird turns into curry in the UK in the 1950s and gonad-based recipes.

edited to add that I've just seen the photo of your hind paw foot, Myrtle and I'm afraid the MN reaction emojis are totally inadequate! I needed one that said 'ouch-that's not what a foot is supposed to look like - poor you - the bruising is inevitable and will go soon - this is just a stage in your recovery - hang in there it will get better'
but strangely there is no such emoji!

I am not obsessed with penises, but did I ever tell the Bluestockingers about Gus I (not to be confused with Gus II, Gus III or Gus the cat)?

He got his body and head from his spaniel mother, Lassie, and his legs from his terrier father Russell. Sweet, affectionate and excitable, he particularly enjoyed running up and down stairs. Where he would often become stranded by the unfortunate effect of his erection being longer that either his legs of the stair risers.

Only a heartless brute would laugh at a poor little dog.

Oh, I would absolutely have loved that line about the tiny plastic piece! 😏 It would’ve been the perfect distraction, and honestly it matters because it matters to you.

You’ve poured so much time and care into creating the Bluestocking with its gerbils in hi-viz and the blue heart over the door for Swashy. I’m really looking forward to the Grand Opening. It's beautiful work, and you’ve done it all from scratch without a kit or instructions (which makes my book nooks look easy in comparison!).

To me, the Bluestocking is about bringing everything here, the hard stuff, the silly stuff, and the really bloody annoying stuff like wrong-sized bits of plastic. None of it takes precedence. Different things bring us here at different times, and they all deserve space.

Thank you Myrtle, I really appreciate that.
I promise I won't hesitate to post nice things about the Real Bluestocking, but honestly, I just couldn't have posted rants about irritating but very minor little glitches in the midst of other people's really serious life events .

I've had my rant and nice responses now, thank you

Ooooh - I’d love a Bluestocking performance of the Nutcracker - it’s my favourite ballet - I watch it every Christmas. I’d love to see it live, at Covent Garden, if I’m ever mobile enough to do the trip.

Just spotted this on twitter. If the Bluestocking was a postbox topper...

Loving Boily's dancing! 😍

Ah a field mouse. I wonder if it’s creator is now working on a house mouse?

I often say quite seriously that Looney Tunes should be part of the school curriculum. At least half of what I know about literature, philosophy, art and classical music comes from trying to understand the jokes in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

And then sometimes your knowledge comes from even more random places

😁Never seen that before!

In an interview, maybe with Suggs himself, there was reference to someone with a lisp exclaiming, "Thing, Thuggs, thing!", & this is now an obligatory remark in our house whenever Madness are on the TV.

@MyrtleLion thanks for the explanation. I see you get a fancy air boot.

The NHS really needs some better discharge advice generally. My aunt in France got a brochure in advance! With lil cartoons. Clear medical communication helps everyone, it's like those large buttons phones that everyone bought!

Unfortunately I'm writing a complaint after the care from my foot fracture. I need surgery to my ankle which I reckon would be avoidable if I'd had proper care, from what I'm calling the "Virtually Useless Fracture Clinic" who never saw me in person and missed ankle injury.

It's now occured to me as well that maybe I should have had my fracture boot on for my ankle, so I'll add that to it.

R.e. neurodivergent I agree my brother is and the communication can be so awful it's funny. They (a psychiatrist so someone with a lot of training) asked him if he "remembered" taking his medication. He took that literally and didn't "remember" taking it.

Thankfully he at least realised the misunderstanding after the appointment but ended up really anxious. He was taking about the right amount by when he ran out. I suspect other autistic spectrum patients may not have done.

I'm not sure I understand about the remembering misunderstanding. Or "taking about the right amount by when he ran out"...

Agree with needing clearer info for patients. Many's the time I've done a test (e.g. a blood test) & had to ask, "So how will I get the results & when should I expect them?".

Or I've been told, "Any problems, let us know," & had to ask, "What does a problem look like?" because I have no idea what might be vital & what can be ignored.

Sorry, I know this is a serious topic, but it reminds me of something I saw on a bottle of meds once : 'If you see anything unusual, tell your doctor'.

'Doctor doctor! I saw a Lamborghini tractor the other day! How unusual is that!'😄

I'm now wondering whether the reason we get a proper written information sheet from the dentist is because he is French (and his senior partner Polish). In any case, I appreciate it.

Apologies for confusion. He interpreted "do you remember taking medication" to mean do you actually remember it, like can you visualise it.

Not whether he was taking it or not.

That's what it means, isn't it?

I still don't understand the taking by bit.

They meant, ‘do you remember to take the meds every day’ not whether he could remember the individual instances.

Meanwhile today hasn’t gone to plan - DH was putting sun cream on his legs having sensibly donned shorts for once, prior to going out somewhere nice (we’d not decided country walk or nice gardens) when his back went in some agonising way. Usually it’s a muscle spasm I can pummel into submission for him but it’s not yielding today. I had loads I needed to do in the garden - mid season tidy up etc - so it’s not been wasted but he’s still barely ambulant. Just having some tea, and eaten a lovely white nectarine (over the sink, the better to be able to wash face and hands straight after) - need to go and do some watering and maybe prick out some seedlings I started a few weeks ago.

Maud is cooking roast chicken at Woolly Hugs HQ. I can literally smell it!